Journal Notes

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Outlaw Women of the Midwest.

Anyone who knew Anne Cook thought she was cruel, unfeeling and motivated by money.  The brothel she operated in North Platte, Nebraska, inthe late 1920s was a profitable enterprise, but she wanted to amass a fortune and one house of ill repute would not be enough.  No legitimate business alone could make her rich either.  Anne hoped to fulfill her dream with a combination of both.  According to those who knew the Cook family well, Anne’s teenage daughter brought in a substantial amount of income working for her at the brothel.  Clients requested the thirteen year old on a regular basis.

By the time Clara was in her 30s she had fully adopted her mother’s quest for wealth and was equally ambitious.  In addition to entertaining callers, Clara had become a bookkeeper for Anne’s various illegal enterprises.  Among Anne’s nefarious business ventures was bootlegging, gambling, and extortion.  Clara used what she knew about her mother’s criminal behavior to extort money from Anne and grow her own bank account.  The pair often fought over the misappropriation of funds.  Clara misjudged how far Anne would go to maintain the property, money, and power she had acquired.

On May 29, 1934, Clara challenged her mother for the last time.  Family members at the sprawling farm where they lived in Lincoln County, Nebraska, told authorities that the pair had been arguing most of the day.  No one was certain of the nature of the quarrel only that Anne had settled the heated discussion by killing her daughter.

 For more information about Anne Cook read the Bedside Book of Bad Girls:  Outlaw Women of the Old West.

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Women Outlaws of the Midwest

Among the notorious bad guys who robbed, swindled, and murdered Midwesterners from 1824 to 1936 were a number of bad girls who could be just as dishonest and violent.  On September 23, 1895, a  woman with a handkerchief over her face and a revolver in her hand stepped into the Mountaineers Club in Independence, Missouri and robbed the faro game of $525 and made her escape.  She leveled her gun at the men and told them to keep still, and then helped herself to the winnings.  The men in the room were too dazed to give the alarm until the woman had escaped.  On that same date at 10:30 in the evening an attempt was by a woman to blow up a west bound Union Pacific train by placing a stick of dynamite in the tracks at a junction half a mile east of the city.  Nearly the whole train passed over the dynamite before it exploded.  The last coach, filled with passengers, was badly shattered, but no one was injured.  Authorities claim the crimes were committed by “women of easy virtue.”

 To learn more about these female criminals read

The Bedside Book of Bad Girls: Women Outlaws of the Midwest

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Women Outlaws of the Midwest

She began with a hymn book in her hand; she died clutching a gun.  That was “Ma” Barker, mother of four outlaw sons whom J. Edgar Hoover, chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice described as the real “public enemy No. 1.”

Kate Barker – “Ma” as she was known to her criminal associates was the “brains” of the Barker-Karpis gang – kidnappers, bank robbers, and murderers.  And she died as most criminals wanted by the federal government do.  Ma Barker began her public career in Kansas City, Missouri.  In either an attitude or assumed or real piety she was the leader of a small band of religious zealots who used to hold meetings in the street near city hall.  Whenever one of her followers was arrested for picking pockets, vagrancy, or street walking or casual misdemeanor, she would go before the police judge, shed tears and claim that she alone was left in the world to befriend the poor defendant.  In most cases the defendant went back to more and bigger crimes and “Ma” Barker’s friendliness and a slight ability as a defense witness soon became a racket.

“Ma” and her boys were responsible for kidnapping two of the country’s wealthiest men and holding them ransom.  The Barker-Karpis gang murdered police officers and federal agents and any outlaw who double-crossed them.  Ma Barker’s life ended at a home she was renting in Florida on January 16, 1935.  To learn more about the life and violent death of Ma Barker and her sons read The Bedside Book of Bad Girls: Women Outlaws of the Midwest. 

The winner of a free copy of the book will be announced on April 30.

Good luck!

Enter to win a copy of The Bedside Book of Bad Girls:

Outlaw Women of the Midwest

Death, dealing from “a cold deck,” flipped the ace of spades for ‘ Poker Alice” Tubbs on February 27, 1930, it was her admission card to the big game that is eternity.  She was one of the last of a bizarre coterie of hard living, straight-shooting men and women who added the color—sometimes it was blood-red—to the old West. “Deadwood Dick,” “Wild Bill” Hickok end “Calamity Jane” were others.  Poker Alice wore a gun, smoked cigars and could swear like a trooper.  During a life as adventurous as any man’s, she gambled for high stakes without a single betraying quiver of the-hand as she dealt; without the twitch of a face muscle.  Old age and complications, following an operation for gall stones, were given by doctors as the cause of her death.  Poker Alice was English born but American bred, and always the gambler. She started as a faro dealer.  A woman at the box was a novelty that drew the black beards of the wild West, with their bags of gold, to the gambling table. So successful was she, that soon she was known, not just, as a woman gambler, but as a winning gambler, man or woman.  Colorado, Nevada, Montana, the Dakotas—wherever there was pay dirt and hombres with guts enough to lay it against the turn of a card—Poker Alice was. She took $6,000 in one night’s play in Silver City, N. M.  It seems rather strange, in retrospect, that Poker Alice, self-reliant, courageous and able to take care of herself anywhere—should have had time for love, yet she was three times married. Her first husband was a mining engineer, P. Duffield.  Then came W. G. Tubbs, a gambler who, despite a wide reputation of his own, never could equal Poker Alice at the card table. Her third husband was George Huckert, but when he died Poker Alice resumed the name of he- second husband.  She was in the rush of the ‘free lands’ of Oklahoma, and later skipped from place to place as the federal government warred on the gamblers. One by one commanding figures of the old, the lawless West, dropped away—many by bullets.  Poker Alice grew old. Times changed. Railroads brought civilization to the raw, elemental West.  Eventually there came prohibition.  Poker Alice retired to a little cabin in the Black Hills.  She was convicted for violating the prohibition law but never served the sentence.  Governor W. J. Bulow pardoned her, saying: “I can’t send a white-haired old woman to jail on a liquor charge.”  The days of big games, hard liquor and strong language are gone now. Only the wild glory of the Black Hills remains. Civilization could not take them away; and there today she lies dead—Poker Alice was seventy-seven when she died.

To learn more about Poker Alice read The Bedside Book of Bad Girls:

Women Outlaws of the Midwest

Enter to win a copy of the Bedside Book of Bad Girls:

Women Outlaws of the Midwest

On August 21, 1894, Governor Lowe of Oklahoma issued requisition papers to the Governor of Kansas for Mrs. Flora Mundis, alias ‘Tom King’ the notorious horse thief who has been captured at Fredonia, Kansas.  There were scores of charges against her, and she had broken out of jail in the Territory more than a half a dozen times.  ‘Tom King’ was a handsome and fascinating young woman of about twenty-two years.  She was a quarter-blood Cherokee Indian and many of her relatives and her people lived near Springfield, Missouri from where her ancestors emigrated to the Cherokee country.  Her operations in the Territory had been extensive and notorious and her captures frequent, but she had never yet been brought to trial.  About a year and a half prior to the requisition being ordered she was arrested for complicity in the Wharton train robberies, and, after being held in the Guthrie jail for some time, escaped.  A while later she was held in the Oklahoma City jail and escaped in the same explicable way.  For the last three months of last year she had been in the new jail of Canadian county and her trial was to have taken place in the district court in December.  A few nights before her trial, however, she walked out the open doors of the jail dressed in a full suit of men’s clothing.

To learn more about Flora Mundis read The Bedside Book of Bad Girls: Women Outlaws of the Midwest.

Hearts West on the Publisher’s Weekly, Wall Street Journal and USA Today Best Sellers List

TwoDot, an imprint of Globe Pequot Press, is proud to announce that the book Hearts West: True Stories of Mail Order Brides on the Frontier has been listed as a best seller for Publisher’s Weekly and USA Today. Hearts West brings to life true stories of mail-order brides of the Gold Rush era. Some found soul mates; others found themselves in desperate situations. Complete with the actual hearts-and-hands personal advertisements that began some of the long-distance courtships, this book provides an up-close look at the leap of faith these men and women were willing to take.

Enss has written more than two dozen books on the subject of women of the Old West. Some of the books Chris Enss has written are Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West, Object Matrimony: The Risky Business of Mail Order Matchmaking on the Frontier, and Gilded Girls: Women Entertainers of the Old West. Her latest title is Love Lessons from the Old West: Wisdom from Wild Women. You can visit the author online at: www.chrisenss.com.

Publishers Weekly Best-Sellers

Best-Selling Books Week Ended March 22nd.
Nonfiction E Books

1. “Twelve Years a Slave” by Solomon Northup (HarperCollins)

2. “The Nazi Officer’s Wife” by Edith Hahn Beer (Harper Collins)

3. “Unbroken” by Lauren Hillenbrand (Random House)

4. “Jesus Feminist” by Sarah Bessey (Howard Books)

5.  “Hearts West” by Chris Enss (TwoDot)

6. “Not Cool” by Greg Gutfield (Crown Forum)

7. “10% Happier” by Dan Harris (It Books)

8. “Uganda Be Kidding Me” by Chelsea Handler (Grand Central Publishing)

9. “Killing Jesus: A History” by Bill O’Reilly & Martin Dugard (Macmillan)

10. “Call the Midwife” by Jennifer Worth (Ecco Press)

USA Today Best-Sellers

March 28, 2014 (AP)
By The Associated Press
NONFICTION E BOOKS

1. “Twelve Years a Slave” by Solomon Northup (HarperCollins)

2. “The Nazi Officer’s Wife” by Edith Hahn Beer (Harper Collins)

3. “Unbroken” by Lauren Hillenbrand (Random House)

4. “Jesus Feminist” by Sarah Bessey (Howard Books)

5. “Hearts West” by Chris Enss (TwoDot)

6. “Not Cool” by Greg Gutfield (Crown Forum)

7. “10% Happier” by Dan Harris (It Books)

8. “Uganda Be Kidding Me” by Chelsea Handler (Grand Central Publishing)

9. “Killing Jesus: A History” by Bill O’Reilly & Martin Dugard (Macmillan)

10. “Call the Midwife” by Jennifer Worth (Ecco Press)

Enter to win a copy of the Bedside Book of Bad Girls:

Women Outlaws of the Midwest.

On August 2, 1895, two women bandits, Mrs. Belle Black and Mrs. Jennie Freeman, were captured in the Glass Mountains, in the western part of the Cherokee Strip, and were place in the Unites States jail in Guthrie, Oklahoma.  They belonged to the notorious gang of desperados led by Zip Wyatt, an outlaw guilty of at least a dozen murders.  So skillful was his performance and that of his two female deputies that they defied the vigilance of the Sheriff for more than a year.

According to the arresting officers neither of the women was “appealing in any way.”  “Mrs. Black was small and heavy with dark hair and blue eyes and an expression that was not only criminal, but very unpleasant.  Her husband was one of the outlaw members of the gang.  Mrs. Freeman was tall, thin and malignant.  She left her husband in 1894 to elope with Zip Wyatt.  The women dressed as ordinary farmers’ wives and their appearance and manner enabled them to get away with a good deal of plunder unsuspected.  They sit in their cells chatting with the other prisoners or playing a game of cards with those who have been allowed the freedom of the corridors with them.”

For more information about the women highway robbers who eluded law enforcement read the Bedside Book of Bad Girls.

The winner of a copy of the book Gilded Girls: Women Entertainers of the

Old West is Sarah Rozowski.

The Great Shakespearean Actress, Matilda Heron

Among the greatest actresses who brought Shakespeare to California in the early 1850s was Irish-born Matilda Heron.  She was still in her early twenties, virtually at the beginning of her career, and she arrived under circumstances that were bound to stir the chivalrous impulses of romantic San Francisco.  Trained Shakespearean actors said of her ability that they had never known “a more original, lawless, interesting woman, among the luminaries of the stage,” and to describe her as “an exponent of the elemental passions, in their universal flow and ebb; she was the whirlwind, not the zephyr.”

It was not, however, as the whirlwind that Miss Heron swept to an immediate conquest of California theatre goers during Christmas week of 1853.  San Francisco thrilled to her “noble conduct,” her pious and munificent charity.”  On the third night she was performed in the busy city she was presented with a superlatively dazzling diamond cross in recognition of the generosity with which she promptly dispatched the proceeds of her benefit to the widow of her manager, who had died on the voyage up from Panama.

Born in County Cork in 1830, Matilda emigrated to the United States in 1842.  She was living in Philadelphia when she began appearing professionally in plays. In 1853 she traveled to California and gained popularity. In 1854, she was married to lawyer Henry Herbert Byrne in San Francisco, but the union lasted but a few months.  While in Paris in 1855, Heron saw the popular play La Dame aux camélias (The Lady of the Camellias), and decided to present her own version, in English, in America. The resulting “Camille” for which she is best known, had its New York debut in January 1857 at Wallack’s Theatre.

In 1857, Heron wed composer Robert Stoepel (they separated in 1869). During the 1861-1862 season Heron wrote “The Belle of the Season” and starred in it at the Winter Garden. In 1863, she gave birth to a daughter, Helen Wallace Stoepel, better known as Bijou Heron, who became an actress herself. By the late 1860s, and as her health began to wane, Matilda Heron receded from the spotlight and taught acting. A big benefit show was done to raise funds for her in January 1872, which included Edwin Booth, Jules Levy, John Brougham, and Laura Keene.

Matilda died in New York City on March 7, 1877. Her reported last words were “Tilly never did harm to anyone – poor Tilly is so happy.”

Enter to win a copy of Gilded Girls: Women Entertainers of the Old West.

Catherine Hayes, the frontier’s most famous opera singer.

Catherine Hayes, affectionately known by her contemporaries as the “Swan of Erin,” was one of the first noted opera singers to appear in California when the Golden State was young, way back in the early 50s.  She appeared there through the efforts of P.T. Barnum, who first introduced Jennie Lind to the United States.  Her contemporaries in the musical world were Albini and Sontag and the Spanish dancer Lola Montez, with whom she called her friend: but there was a world of difference between the fiery Spanish artist, vivid interpreter of Terpsichore the morganatic wife of royalty, and the calm, placid “Swan of Erin.”

Catherine Hayes was born in Limerick, Ireland in 1928.  She was a quiet, reserved girl, not very robust.  Her favorite pastime was to wander by herself down the picturesque banks of the river Shannon, where, concealed in the thick shadow of the trees, she delighted to pour out her pent-up emotions in a medley of songs and trills, all quite extemporaneous, as at that time she had never had a singing lesson in her life and did not realize the great gift that was hers, which later was to thrill the hearts and stir the souls of thousands.

One starry summer’s night when the river was full of pleasure crafts, Catherine, concealed in her leafy bower, was pouring forth a veritable flood of melody.  One of the small boats stopped close to shore and its occupant, Bishop Edmond Knox, listened intently.  At that time he was the Bishop of Limerick.  He was enchanted by Catherine voice and wasted no time in becoming acquainted with the young singer.  Her persuaded her mother, who was a widow and Catherine’s sole guardian, to allow her daughter to take singing lessons from the foremost teachers in the city at his expense.

To read more about Catherine Hayes and how she became a star on stages across the frontier read Gilded Girls: Women Entertainers of the Old West. 

The winner of the drawing will be announced on Friday, March 28.

Enter to win a copy of the book Gilded Girls: Women Entertainers of the Old West

Helena Modjeska, Virginia City, Nevada’s Favorite Actress

It was 1848 that Austria retracted an arrangement with Poland to allow Cracow, the capital of Poland, to exist as a free city, attacked Cracow bombarded it and took possession.  Accompanying this tragedy to the Poles was much bloodshed and sorrow.  Cracow became a city of turmoil and grief.  Amidst the terror Helena Opid, the daughter of a teacher in the school of Cracow, grew up.  She was destined to become one of the world’s greatest actresses, and without doubt the stern times in which she spent her youth had much effect in her capacity for displaying the emotions which she inevitably achieved.

Brought up in a classic atmosphere of culture and music, Helena developed a passion for acting at an early age.  It is said that after her first visit to a theatre, where she witnessed a performance of “The Daughter of the Regiment,” she spent many hours acting out the play she had seen to her friends.

When very young Helena met Gustav Modrezejewski, a friend of the family who taught Helena and her many brothers and sisters German.  Modrezejewski was twenty years Helena senior when they married and settled down to a quiet domestic life.

When she was twenty her son was born.  Soon Helena her husband and baby and mother moved to a little town called Bochnie, in Austrian Poland.  Bochnie was a center of salt mines and soon after Helena arrival in the village, there occurred a frightening accident in which many miners were killed.  The good citizens organized an amateur performance to raise funds for the relief of the widows and orphans.

On this occasion, Helena Modejska – as she was later known because English speaking audience had difficulty pronouncing her full name – made her first appearance on the stage.  So great was her success that Helena and her husband – who was appointed her manager – organized a little traveling troupe that went around the country performing.

To learn how Helena got to America and became star read Gilded Girls: Women Entertainers of the Old West. 

The contest winner will be announced on Friday, March 28.